By the way, I recently saw some statistics on a pro gun control website regarding "assault weapons" used in crimes. These figures apparently included ordinary semi-auto pistols with high capacity (>10 round) magazines as "assault weapons", although it never explicitly said so. Needless to say, this greatly increased the number of "assault weapons" used in crime, since criminals use handguns FAR more often than rifles, and because high capacity magazines are a standard feature on many popular pistols. This seemed at best a little misleading to me, since most people think of AKs and AR-15s when they hear the term "assault weapon."

Yea if they really wanted to do anything with gun control, it would have to focus on handguns/pistols. In the US the vast majority of murders are done with pistols, far more than knives and bare hands, which are ahead of rifles which I think only account for 4% of murders. Escalations of drunken brawls and domestic violence are the most common scenarios. There would have to be a buyback program too, which I don't know how successful that would be. Besides that handguns are what you need for a home defense last resort, since it is close quarters. Rifles would only be good if you have a mansion.

Probably all you could really do is close loopholes, and crackdown on domestic violence and operating guns while intoxicated. No guns or knives in bars would be good. Most night clubs already check you at the door, which I think helps.

As for schools I think the best idea I've heard so far is having a cop there, or even former military. There is high unemployment with guys transitioning back to civilian life, so you could maybe kill two birds with one stone there.

I've actually heard the oposite about the Australian buyback ... That while it succeeded in confiscating and destroying a large number of legally owned weapons (at great expense) it seemingly had little or no effect on the crime rate.

The NRA ran a misinformation campaign using discredited "statistics" that seemed to do an effective job at establishing that idea. Since gun control has been implemented homicide and firearm suicides are significantly down, and mass killings went from about 1 per year to 0 since the laws were passed. While I refuse to suggest that correlation is causation (see my earlier point about the chicken/egg in violence reduction) the Australian government, the Australian people, and large parts of the international community believe them to have been highly effective.

But I have to admit I don't really find this subject to be particularly interesting. Choking claims 20 times more lives than "mass killings." I think your media is doing your people an incredible disservice by jumping all over these tragedies and giving the killers so much infamy.

_________________don't you know there ain't no devil that's just god when he's drunk

"The NRA ran a misinformation campaign using discredited "statistics" that seemed to do an effective job at establishing that idea. Since gun control has been implemented homicide and firearm suicides are significantly down, and mass killings went from about 1 per year to 0 since the laws were passed. While I refuse to suggest that correlation is causation (see my earlier point about the chicken/egg in violence reduction) the Australian government, the Australian people, and large parts of the international community believe them to have been highly effective." - JasonJones

The version I heard was that the Australian crime rate/murder rate was in decline prior to the buyback and continued to fall at roughly the same rate following the buyback.

"Probably all you could really do is close loopholes, and crackdown on domestic violence and operating guns while intoxicated. No guns or knives in bars would be good. Most night clubs already check you at the door, which I think helps." - Ironman

All good ideas.

"As for schools I think the best idea I've heard so far is having a cop there, or even former military. There is high unemployment with guys transitioning back to civilian life, so you could maybe kill two birds with one stone there." - Ironman

I think it makes more sense to use armed security officers, while keeping police free to deal with actual policing.

The version I heard was that the Australian crime rate/murder rate was in decline prior to the buyback and continued to fall at roughly the same rate following the buyback.

It's possible that's true —although a 2006 25 year study shows otherwise — however the mass killings rate was not falling prior to the ban and there have been zero since. If the rate of decline in mass killings remained constant there should have been 11 since the ban, a significant difference.

I think there's enough compelling evidence in favour of the efficacy of at least some of Australia's gun control methods, but I think the best argument against them is that Australia has less people than Texas and no land borders. You can make an effective case that "some gun control works in some cases," but most certainly not that "America needs Australian laws."

_________________don't you know there ain't no devil that's just god when he's drunk

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

The home depot thing is amusing but a little misleading. I have been seeing that sort of thing on facebook a lot. It's true rifles are one of the least used murder weapons, if not the very least used categorically speaking. However handguns are the most used murder weapon by a lot. Of course if I remember right there are nearly 10 times as many suicides as murders, and even that is dwarfed by accidents, which is still like 5th down the list or so. Most people die of heart disease, cancer, and respiratory infections. These three things are of course typically age related.

It is also true that there is no proper evidence showing that either looser or tighter gun laws have any effect on crime in America. I've mentioned that before too, probably a couple years ago. It seems like certain particular restrictions work, but only in conjunction with other methods of law enforcement. Inconclusive evidence is frequently a strong indicator that multiple variables are involved.

Something else I've noticed recently. In reference to universal background checks, I've heard several pro-gun-control sources make reference to tracking guns from owner to owner. That sounds an aweful lot like registration to me.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to background checks, and would even support requiring background checks for private sales, but I DO NOT support using the information from background check to create some kind of back door gun registry.

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